Halogen free flame retardant additives are of increasing interest in reinforced and un-reinforced polymers, more particularly thermoplastic polymers, for their ability to provide FR properties while remaining environmentally benign. Among those halogen free flame retardants, hypophosphite salts or inorganic phosphinates are known as good FR additives for polymers. However, phosphinic acid salts may cause the degradation of the polymer to which they are added as mentioned for example in WO 2009/010812. Moreover, hypophosphite salts are known to have a tendency to generate phosphine at elevated temperatures at which they are processed, and phosphine is spontaneously flammable, highly toxic and strong irritant as mentioned for example in US 2007/0173572.
The proposed solution taught by US 2007/0173572 is to scavenge the generated phosphine by adding a phosphine suppressing additive which can be a specific polymer, an amide, imide, cyanurate, phosphazine among other products. The drawback of that method is that another additive is added to the polymer composition which can only neutralize the phosphine without preventing the generation of that phosphine.
Thus, there exists a constant need in the market of FR agents in having hypophosphites salts without the above drawbacks and that premature instability or at a much lower degree. There is a need to propose hypophosphite salts sufficiently stabilized in order not to generate a dangerous amount of phosphine.